The Editor’s Desk – From Beneath the Clutter

What a week this is going to be! Minimum days all week for my daughter, due to parent-teacher conferences. Had mine yesterday (went great!), so we’re all done.

I expect the kids will be having a lot of fun. More time to play outside after school before it gets dark. Not that they mind the dark, but nights have been a bit on the chilly side here lately. They only like cold if it’s associated with rain. Or snow, I must assume, but they haven’t had that as weather yet, and if it happens we probably won’t get that much here anyhow.

I find that for working this is a good and bad situation. More time together means my older two play together more, so I can actually get more work time. But then there’s all the baby duties that never change.

Except when she discovers new skills, that is. Like picking small stuff up, pulling up on everything.

There’s a reason why they say a mother’s work never ends.

Using LinkedIn to Become an Expert in Your Field

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LinkedIn is probably the most popular business networking site available and depending on your business, this might be the business networking site to propel your business from average and struggling to get noticed to being seen as expert in your field within a very short time.

How can you get started and use LinkedIn for your business and build up your connections and your business profile? There are a few ways, in fact there are more than just a few, but we’re going to go over just a few here.

There is a such a thing as an open networker, and what this generally means is that anyone who calls themselves an open networker, will accept nearly every contact request that they receive. This is very handy to know as this is a way to quickly grow your list of contacts on LinkedIn and on the plus side, within about 30 minutes you can go from zero contacts to a few hundred. This may seem great, but remember quality over quantity.

You only get so many contact requests on LinkedIn and if you are adding a few hundred of nameless contacts at a time, they will soon all get used up.

Take a look at your networking strategy. What is it? Is it to find new joint venture partners? Is it to recruit new staff? Is it to find new clients? Once you figure out your strategy for using LinkedIn then decide where to find these people. There are hundreds of groups on LinkedIn that you can join and this is the easiest way to add quality contacts. Once you join groups, you can add discussions and answer other discussion topics and showcase your expertise.

Another great LinkedIn tool you can use, which is especially useful when you want to showcase your expertise, is the questions and answers section. Each question is submitted into a category, which you can then go through to find your area of expertise and start answering those applicable questions. Each answer is ranked and you get points allocated to you for each answer and the more points you receive the more you are seen as an expert in your field, on LinkedIn.

Just make sure that your LinkedIn profile is filled in correctly and in a professional manner, giving the best impression of both you and your business. Showcase your products and/or services and if possible, if any of your LinkedIn contacts are past clients or work colleagues, ask them for a testimonial as a testimonial goes a long way on LinkedIn.

Lesley Johnston is the owner of Internet Growth Systems, where the focus is on teaching online business owners how to grow their business online using free and low cost strategies. Offering a variety of step by step training materials, one to one and group training and business consultancy, Internet Growth Systems should be your number one choice for online training for your business.

Internet Growth Systems offers a FREE 6 week online business course covering everything from starting up to growing your business, with 6 weeks of audios and workbooks to help you get the most out of your business.

http://www.internetgrowthsystems.com/Training/free-6-week-online-business-course.html